SD cards

The SD card is a key part of the Raspberry Pi; it provides the initial storage for the Operating System and files. Storage can be extended through many types of USB connected peripherals.

When the Raspberry Pi is 'switched on', i.e. connected to a power supply, a special piece of code called the bootloader is executed, which reads more special code from the SD card that is used to start up the Raspberry Pi. If there is no SD card inserted, it will not start. Do NOT push in or pull out an SD card while the Raspberry Pi is connected to the power, as this is likely to corrupt the SD card data (you might get away with it, but it is best not to).

The SD card must be formatted, or written to, in a special way that means the Raspberry Pi can read the data it needs to start properly. If you are new to this check the instructions, or buy a pre-formatted SD card.

One advantage to using an SD card like this is that you can have several SD cards, each with a different operating system, or a different purpose. Simply power off, switch cards, and reconnect the power. You have a different computer to play with.

Which SD card?

SD cards come in three physical sizes (see picture). The Raspberry Pi needs the largest one. The miniSD card and the MicroSD card can be used in a Raspberry Pi, but you will need an adapter / holder to fit it.

SD cards come in a range of storage sizes. You will likely need more than 2 GB.

There are other properties of SD cards that are not covered here. Read the Wikipedia article for those details.

Other SD card content

Preinstalled SD cards

You might like to consider buying a preinstalled card; a wide range of branded SD cards preinstalled with operating systems are available. If you don't buy a preinstalled card, you will have to create one yourself. Check the SD Card setup page to help you make this decision. That page also shows where these cards can be bought from.

Verification

Users have listed working and non-working cards here. The SD Card Association suggests there are more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models. These are just a few.

Is this reliable?

Unfortunately there is little scope for analysis of the failures given below. There are several reasons why a card may not work. You will notice that the same card may be shown as working and not working; the model numbers on cards do seem to be confusing.

the firmware / bootloader on early Raspberry Pi boards had a problem with Class 10 high speed cards. This has been fixed.

the drivers in some Linux distributions have been improved since the initial release

the Raspberry Pi can suffer from performance problems if peripherals are drawing too much power from the power supply; one of the consequences is errors from the SD card

unless using a preinstalled card, users have to copy a distribution image to the SD card. This might be considered more technical than the user has previously experienced, resulting in a faulty SD card

there are many cheap Chinese copies of (brand name) SD-Cards on the market, in addition they are often mislabelled as having greater capacity than they really have, see SanDisk counterfeit cards

... and of course, they may be faulty!

Technical Information

Note that manufacturers change their designs over time, even as the specs stay the same. (E.g. an ACME 8 GB class 4 card manufactured in 2011 might work, while one manufactured in 2012 might not.)

For this reason, please specify product numbers in the lists below, when possible.

Working / Non-working SD cards

The table can be sorted using the triangles in the top row. Please add entries in the correct location, so that the initial sort is by Manufacturer, Type, Size and Class. Keep separate entries for working and non-working. Put your user name and date in the final column, so people can judge if the problem is still likely to occur.

OK

Manufacturer

Type

Size (GB)

Class

Model

Info

Logged by

ok

7DAYSHOP.CzOM

SDHC

8

10

man:0x000027 oem:0x5048 name:SD08G hwrev:0x3 fwrev:0x0

Ap 3 Jul 2012

nok

Acumem

SDHC

8

6

many errors on 7 Jun 2012

S0rce 8 Jun 2012

nok

Adata

SDHC

2

?

Speedy (MMAGF02GWMCA -NA)

Oostenvr 4 Jul 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

2

2

Speedy 8B0947

Stevhorn 14 Aug 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

4

4

ASDH4GCL4-R

Possibly a bit slow. Stiff to pull out of the PI.

James.C 24 Apr 2013

ok

Adata

SDHC

4

4

BH1109416141G

Blutme 17 Aug 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

8

2

MMB3F08GWMCA-GE

Timishier 10 Jun 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

8

6

MMAGR08GUDCA-DB

sometimes boots (Dattaway)

Florz 26 May 2012, Dattaway 13 Jun 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

8

10

AUSDH8GCL10-R, P-SDH8G10-EC, ASDH8GCL10-R

Elatllat 22 Dec 2011, Madcow42 18 Jul 2012, Thenix 14 Jan 2013

ok

Adata

SDHC

16

6

man:0x00001d oem:0x4144 name:SD hwrev:0x1 fwrev:0x0

Semtex 21 May 2012, Jettis 5 Sep 2013

nok

Adata

SDHC

16

6

SD5MY168G0

won't boot

Nijntje 18 May 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

16

10

16GSDHC10

Captainralf 6 Jun 2012

ok

Adata

SDHC

32

10

AUSDH32GCL10-R

Tom3f 13 Jul 2012

ok

Adata

microSDHC

8

4

MicroSD w/ adapter

0xAF 12 Jun 2012

ok

Adata

microSDHC

8

10

MicroSD w/ adapter

johnniepop 15 Apr 2013

ok

Adata

microSDHC

16

10

AUSDH16GCL10-RA1

with adapter

Frank26080115 1 Jul 2012

ok

Adata

microSDHC

32

10

AUSDH32GCL10-RA1

2013-05-25-wheezy-raspbian

pAIgn10 6 Jun 2013

nok

Adata

microSDHC

64

10

with adapter

rolgiati 2 May 2013

nok

Agfa

microSDHC

16

6

with adapter ENAAJK121960

MaWe 13 Aug 2012

nok

AmazonBasics

SDHC

4

10

B004Q3R9AQ

We have had a 50% failure rate on these with file system corruption, even with write protection enabled, with Raspian

Doesn't work with N0390-002.A00LF though (tested with Raspbian “wheezy”) - mmc0 timeouts, waiting for hw int. I wouldn't recommend buying this card. N0460-002.A00LF: Does not boot / io error from dmesg with os running from usb.

Arrow 14 Jun 2012, J3rGuS 19 March 2013, Jettis 5 Sep 2013

ok

Kodak

SDHC

4

2

Semtex 21 May 2012

ok

Kodak

SDHC

8

4

Britaniola 22 Apr 2012

ok

Kruidvat

SDHC

8

4

Boeboe 18 May 2012

ok

Kruidvat

SDHC

8

10

Asiklov 25 Oct 2012

ok

Lexar

SDHC

4

4

Boots consistently and no error messages in log after 1/2 hour use (works with Raspbmc - 321liftoff)

Russell 26 Apr 2012

ok

Lexar

SDHC

4

6

Platinum II

Pdp7 25 Apr 2012

ok

Lexar

SDHC

8

4

Milti-Use SDHC LSD8GB ASBWMC2 rev.B, on card 31352-oc4-8gbbm-a

sold in 1 or 2 pack

Spyder Mar-2013

ok

Lexar

SDHC

8

4

Md84419 21 Apr 2012

ok

Lexar

SDHC

8

6

Platinum II

Shirro 7 May 2012

nok

Lexar

SDHC

8

6

Premium series

blazi 17 December 2013

ok

Lexar

SDHC

8

10

Platinum II (200X) LSD8GBBBEU200C10

Works fine on OpenElec 3.0.6

Vygandas 18 Jun 2013

ok

Lexar

SDHC

16

6

Platinum II

Semtex 21 May 2012

ok

Lexar

SDXC

64

10

Premium series

UHS-I

Kuisma 17 Apr 2013

ok

Lexar

SDXC

128

?

LSD128CTBNA400

UHS-I

AdamGreenblatt 12 Aug 2012

ok

Lexar

microSDHC

32

10

HIGH-SPEED

RogerH 5 Jul 2012

ok

Master

SDHC

16

10

[man:0x000003 oem:0x5344 name:SMI hwrev:0x1 fwrev:0x0]

Malvineous 1 Jul 2012

nok

Master Optimum

SDHC

16

10

Only 1 red LED lit, no HDMI output. Started booting one single time then crashed during boot. No errors writing card on Mac

User234891 23 May 2013

ok

Maxell

SDHC

16

4

X-SERIES

MicroSD w/ adapter. Tested with latest version of Raspbian (as at date of entry).

Drummingsim 28 Jul 2013

nok

Maxell

SDHC

16

10

X-Series 83-P120001149-1

Paul 26 Aug 2013

ok

Medion

SDHC

8

4

Buadhach 29 Jul 2012

ok

Medion

microSDHC

32

6

MD86958

works well with NOOBS 1-2-1 and Raspbian

Joerg 14 Aug 2013

ok

Medion

SDHC

32

6

MD86965

works well with NOOBS 1-2-1, Raspbian and RiscOS

Joerg 19 Aug 2013

ok

Memorex Travel Card

SDHC

8

10

?

Works well with Raspbian 2013-09-25.

The Doctor, 25 October 2013

nok

Memory2Go

SDHC

4

6

S404G1029

I/O Errors leading to Kernel Panic on startup

Snohi 12 Jun 2012

nok

Microcenter

SDHC

4

4

hasn't worked with any of the images I've tried; appears to be completely unrecognized

Pnppl 11 Jun 2012

ok

Microcenter

SDHC

8

4

0289508

(sold in bins at checkout)

Pdp7 25 Apr 2012

ok

Microcenter

SDHC

8

10

0349728

(sold in bins at checkout)

Pdp7 25 Apr 2012

ok

Microcenter

SDHC

16

10

(sold in bins at checkout)

Crayfishandy 11 Jul 2012

ok

Mushkin

SDHC

16

10

MKNSDHCU1-16GB

Frank26080115 1 Jul 2012

ok

Mushkin

SDHC

32

10

MKNSDHCC10-32GB

Openboat 30 May 2012

ok

Mustang

SDHC

8

10

SD8GHCCL10MU-R

Xanatos 31 May 2012

ok

MyMemory

SDHC

8

10

MYMESDH8G10

(latest batch not working - Bubblebobble)

Rew 18 Apr 2012

nok

MyMemory

SDHC

8

10

Jezmck 27 Apr 2012

ok

MyMemory

SDHC

16

10

MYMESDH16G10

Jblackburn 9 Jun 2012

ok

MyMemory

SDHC

32

10

Dale2507 10 Nov 2012

ok

OCZ

SDHC

8

6

Gold Series (08110596-8GB-6)

tested with debian6-19-04-2012

Alkarex 16 Jun 2012

ok

Optima

SDHC

8

4

Does not boot with Raspbian Wheezy 2012-07-15. Works with 2012-09-18

Penguintutor 19 Aug 2012 / 10 Oct 2012

ok

Optima

SDHC

8

10

Pro-Speed

DaWoodster 13 May 2012

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

4

4

Mikerr 5 Jul 2012

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

4

10

UHS-I

(~11.2MB/s read, ~6.2MB/s write)

M4rcs 26 Jul 2012

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

4

10

RP-SDRB04G

Tested with Rasbian Wheezy

jwdietrich 02 Jun 2013

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

4

4

RP-SDLB04GAK

Tested with Pidora (Fedora)

jwdietrich 06 Jul 2013

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

8

2

(~11.1MB/s read, ~9.7MB/s write)

Malexmave 19 Jul 2012

ok

Panasonic

SDHC

8

6

~4.8MB/s read, ~4.4MB/s write, following the Performance below

Xonx 21 Apr 2012

nok

Panasonic

SDHC

8

10

RP-SDU08GD1K - London-2012-Collection

mmc0: timeout waiting for hardware interrupt

Selsinork 26 Apr 2012

ok

Patriot

SDHC

8

6

PSF8GSDHC10-PC

Paradigmic 7 Jun 2012

nok

Patriot

SDHC

8

6

PS8GSDHC10-BC

repeatable corruption after 1 or 2 reboots with 2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian

1 - Tested with 2013-02-09-wheezy. 2 - On Mac, dd to image did not work, but SD Card Builder did. Wheezy read and write right at about 20MBps. After booting, I installed several packages - all fine. After that, I installed RetroPie. That took about 15 hours to download and compile - zero errors.

1 - Zambon 9 Mar 2013, 2 - RicM July 17 2013

ok

PNY

SDHC

16

4

Gcat 14 May 2012

ok

PNY

SDHC

16

10

P-SDHC16G10-GE, P-SDHC16G10-EF, Pro-Elite P-SDHC16U10-30-GE

Works with Wheezy, does not work with Squeeze (mmc0: timeout...), Arch (no boot) (Joshdev), or Fedora Remix. Works with Raspbmc (Sp00l)

Doesn't work with debian6-19-04-2012.img and with replacement kernel.img and start.elf (Weston). Doesn't work with Debian Wheezy beta (2012-06-18)(Halton). Doesn't work with Arch Linux 13/06/2012 (Madhur)

Weston 20 May 2012, Halton 8 Jun 2012, Madhur 27 Jun 2012

ok

SanDisk

SDHC

8

10

Extreme Pro (SDSDXPA-008G-X46)

(95MB/s UHS-I) - Works with stock 2012-07-15-wheezy-raspbian

Incyi 28 Jul 2012

ok

SanDisk

SDHC

8

10

Extreme Pro

Works with stock Arch Linux 2013-05-01

Perchrh 28 Apr 2012, Tiwipewo 27 May 2012, Perchrh 17 May 2013

ok

SanDisk

SDHC

8

10

Ultra SDSDU-008G-U46 (30 MB/s)

Works with debian6-19-04-2012 or raspbian images but not with OpenELEC r11212 (MrF). Works with OpenELEC r11493 (Vishnu vijay); works with 2013-09-25-wheezy-raspbian man:0x000003 oem:0x5344 name:SU08G hwrev:0x8 fwrev:0x0 (tswaehn)

end May 2012, new kernel.img and start.elf, won't run init. 4 Jun 2012, debian6-19-04-2012.img, replacement kernel.img and start.elf from github. Got Error -84 and Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found

Ceptimus 2 Jun 2012, Norbini 4 Jun 2012

ok

TDK

microSDHC

4

4

with Adapter (80-56-10301-004G)

Norbini 4 Jun 2012

ok

TDK

microSDHC

8

10

Works with Raspbian 2012-07-15

Backeby 20 Jul 2012

ok

TOPRAM

SDHC

8

6

TRSD8GC6

Works with OpenELEC (Frodo and Gotham test builds), did not test on anything else yet.

Doesn't Boot, show that "kernel panic - not syncing attempted to kill init"

Khfung02 13 Sep 2012

ok

Transcend

SDHC

16

10 UHS-1

TS16GSDHC10U1

Works with Occidentals 0.2 from Adafruit, read and write about 15 MB/s, didn't test other versions.

aevh 18 Feb 2013

ok

Transcend

SDHC

32

10

TS32GSDHC10, TS32GSDHC10E

Vakya 29 May 2012

nok

Transcend

microSDHC

2

?

MMAGR02GUECA-MB

reads fine initially after image was written on a PC, gives mmc0 timeout errors reading back data after writing a large amount (in this case with 'pacman -Syu'). Still seems to work, but is *very* slow after this happens, even across reboots

Performance

Terminal Commands

To obtain the results in the table, type the following lines at a command prompt. If you are running the GUI windows, open the Terminal application.

The dd command is the Linux block copy command. It reads from the if= file, in the first case a block of zeros, and writes to the of= file, in the first case the file named test.tmp in your HOME directory (the ~/ means your HOME directory). The bs= gives the size of the data, and the count= gives the number of times this is repeated. sync ensures that the filesystem cache is flushed to have more realistic data. Please run it multiple times, one sample is not scientific enough.

External Benchmarks

Is this reliable?

SD cards are given a rating (Class) by the manufacturers; the higher the rating the quicker the card. SD cards are usually used in a camera. The camera usually writes a block of data (a picture), then writes another. The SD card is tuned for this type of use. When used in the Raspberry Pi the data is written and read a lot more frequently, and from differing locations on the card. This difference in use means the
manufacturers rating may not be as applicable for the Raspberry Pi.

SD card performance

The table can be sorted using the triangles in the top row. Please add entries in the correct location, so that the initial sort is by Manufacturer, Size, Type and Class